In an editorial today we criticize the president’s plan to use the troops to hunt drug runners as a diversionary tactic that is nakedly political and likely not helpful to the push for broader immigration reform.

But Bennet supported a failed Republican effort to raise the stakes even higher.

One of the reasons Obama launched his plan for troops was to give Democrats a way to dodge an George W. Bush-like amendment by Sen. John McCain that would have sent 6,000 National Guard troops to patrol the border.

That amendment failed yesterday in the Senate, but Bennet voted for it, along with some other Democrats facing tough re-election battles, like Arkansas’ Blanche Lincoln.

That must have been a difficult vote for Bennet. Left-leaning immigration-reform advocates are lining up against the president’s plan, because they worry it will bungle chances for comprehensive reform.

And though Bennet has been trying to outflank his primary challenger, Andrew Romanoff, this would seem an easy target for progressives to exploit.

Even among the stalwart “real-guy” set, deference can be seen as macho. Under the right circumstances, even effeminate affectation can be much more badass than swagger.

Think gangster films. (As a “real-guy” set outcast, I only seem to remember Quentin Tarantino films when it comes to the genre, but they’re close enough to make my point.)

First, why do I want to make the point? Because ever since Obama stirred up wrath among the hard Right by bowing to the Japanese emperor, I’ve wanted to argue the bow wasn’t that big a deal.

The problem was, when I started researching the matter I kept losing heart in it.

I wanted to defend Obama and say Cheney had it wrong when he said Obama was advertising “weakness.” I wanted to say that Obama, as commander in chief of the U.S. military, was powerful enough to bow to a ceremonial emperor whose country poses no threat to our democracy. Obama, I figured, wasn’t giving anything away to be nice to the old guy.

Endorsements are not particularly relevant, but two things did jump out at me: First, I’m fairly surprised to see any video endorsement feature a candidate palling around with former President George W. Bush. Associating a candidate with an era of spending and government growth seems counterintuitive, to say the least.

Second, I noticed that Perino alludes to the forthcoming fight McInnis is in for against “relentless” Democrats but says absolutely nothing about his battle against a competent conservative in the primary. As the nominal front-runner, McInnis, no doubt, has made a tactical decision to ignore Josh Penry. But if the races in New York’s H-23 and Florida’s senatorial primary are any indication of the mood of Republican voters, this might not be the best option.

Republicans may rebound in 2010, but it certainly won’t be due to any nostalgia over the good old days of 2007 and “relentless” Republican spending. Experience and name recognition seem to be McInnis’ greatest strengths. Is that enough? I hope not.

During the long campaign season, political junkies relied heavily on RealClearPolitics’ aggregate of polls. Mentions of RCP data were ubiquitous.

So it’s worth noting that RCP’s chief political correspondent David Paul Kuhn is arguing today that political writers have missed an interesting fact: Barack Obama’s popularity hasn’t been as stunning as is usually portrayed.

Kuhn shows, as he puts it, the rate of Obama’s decline in the polls “is larger and faster than many presidents, such as George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter.”

First, the Daschle situation. Once again we see how lucky Barack Obama is to have inherited the presidency after George W. Bush. All it took was for him to admit a mistake and the press and pretty much everyone else eased back and let the uproar over Limousine Liberal Daschle disappear.

After quoting Obama’s saying that he “screwed up,” Baum focuses on this quote from the president:

“It’s important for this administration to send a message that there aren’t two sets of rules, you know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes.”

Given that proclamation, Baum writes: “Tim Geithner must be wondering where he fits in now that principles have triumphed over personality. Geithner played by the prominent-people’s rules, cut corners on his taxes, found religion, said he was sorry, said he was sorry again, and won Senate confirmation as Treasury secretary by a vote of 60-34. It was the narrowest margin for a Treasury secretary in more than half a century.”

And what of the discovery that Solis’s husband only recently paid off $6,400 on tax liens for a business?

Surely a pick for Labor – the department that’s to stick up for the nation’s workers – needs to be trusted by the “ordinary folks.”

Meanwhile, as my friend and colleague David Harsanyi pointed out yesterday, Obama’s tough stance on lobbyists seems a strange one considering the fact a dozen of his top players have been lobbyists or were tied to lobbyists until quite recently.

Maybe Obama shouldn’t have made quite such a big deal out of changing the way Washington does business while on the campaign trail. In Washington, one of his biggest changes along these lines so far has been an ability to admit he goofed.

Why would Dr. Strangelove need to move boxes? Surely he has people for that.

But not if they’re the boxes chockfull of all his secret documents, of which Cheney must have reams and reams; those, the ever-secretive Cheney would need to move on his own.

A rule of thumb for journalists and researchers during the Bush years was that his administration required that all Freedom of Information Act requests be denied. The tight-lipped circle of power kept as much top secret as it could get away with, and sometimes you wondered if they really were down in a mineshaft complex somewhere, plotting their next move.

Anyway, today President Barack Obama made good a campaign pledge and signed a series of orders meant to create a more open government.

As the Politico reports, “Obama said the moves were aimed at helping to ‘restore that faith in government without which we cannot deliver the changes we were sent here to make,’ drawing a barely veiled contrast between himself and a predecessor who was accused by critics of excessive security and abuses of the law.”

Obama ordered all kinds of rules meant to keep lobbyists from gaining too much voice with his cabinet, and took a shot at Cheney, saying, “The mere fact that you have the legal power to keep something secret does not mean that you should always use it.”

“Before deciding to bar information from public view,” Politico reports Obama as saying, “he would consult with his Attorney General and White House counsel – a move aimed at curbing the Bush administration’s penchant for making information classified. President George W. Bush argued that as president he had the right to classify – or declassify – information as he saw fit.”

When Nixon died, a lot of otherwise smart people got all rubbery and treated his exit with all the pomp and respect accorded to the passing of a great and revered leader.

One of the reasons so many journalists love Hunter S. Thompson is because Dr. Gonzo didn’t take the bait.

Thompson wrote a withering obituary in which he insisted that Nixon was evil incarnate. Thompson even said Nixon was “scum.” The legendary writer said the only fitting burial for Nixon was to have him launched through the Los Angeles sewer system into the Pacific.

Bush’s leaving doesn’t inspire in me the desire to go on anything like a Thompson tirade. But I do flinch every time I see or hear positive things being written or said about him now that he’s finally leaving.

We’re a charitable people, and that’s good.

So I was glad to see The Economist hold its ground and carefully work through all the many reasons Bush was a devastatingly terrible president, and I recommend the piece as clear-eyed commentary worthy of careful consideration.

But I do want to take a parting shot at Bush, a man who always seemed friendly and decent in a way, but whose disdain for thought and reflection and whose cocky arrogance always got in the way of my wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Thompson, in his tirade, listed all manner of reasons he was happy to dance on Nixon’s grave.

But here’s the crux – the very worst sin he saw in the crooked president.

“By disgracing and degrading the Presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream.”

Those words clang around in my head these days and I can’t shake them loose. I’d like to accept that Iraq is coming around and may very well become a democratic partner in the future. I’d like to just thank Bush that he prevented another 9/11 on his watch.

But I can’t shake that Bush lied to America and to the world and invaded Iraq on false claims that I am convinced he knew were either lies or very shaky assumptions that didn’t warrant an invasion.

I can’t shake his lack of patience for introspection that led to his meddling with the Constitution to allow for despicable treatment of detainees – even if they were awful villains, those detainees – and in the process destroyed our reputation as a fair people.

There were a lot of other things. But like Thompson’s attack on Nixon, this is what keeps coming back to me.

George W. Bush broke our hearts and threatened to break our spirit.

He did not succeed in the latter, and I suspect we can get over the former.

I would still, if he accorded me the honor (and this obviously is a rhetorical fantasy I’m engaging in here), drink a beer with the out-going president and I imagine I would even greatly enjoy the conversation and buy the second round.

We’re a charitable people and I’m sure I would find him charming now that he’s not in power.

But what to do with them? The Pentagon says some of them they’ve let go just go right back to work being terrorists. Some of the detainees’ own countries don’t want them back. Sending them back to other countries invites even worse abuse.

Here’s a notion: Send them to Crawford.

President George W. Bush hasn’t been the more literary of presidents; so giving him a presidential library seems like a silly gesture. Let’s give him a prison, right on his ranch.

Bush created Gitmo; let the legacy continue.

Out there in the open country with all that brush to clear, the detainees would have plenty to do. Hard work being good for the soul and all of that, a Crawford camp might just make real Americans out of the lot.

Seeing the detainees cut brush just like the American president has done will make for much better images than those dreary photos of orange-suited guys with their bagged-heads chained to the floor.

Bush could come out every morning onto the porch to address the prisoners. With an aviator-sunglass-wearing Dick Cheney at his side cradling a long gun, Bush could address the men, explaining that all they really have here is a failure to communicate.

“Let’s say a man wants freedom, and he works for it,” Bush could tell them. “Well, he gets it.

“Let’s say a man don’t, and wants a night in the box. Well, he gets it.”
Seems only fair.

And if Bush wants a library? Well, he gets it. It’s not as if Crawford couldn’t sustain one. With ex-librarian Laura Bush on hand, the new camp could have a first-rate collection of Korans and weapons magazines to peruse, and maybe a few leather-bound copies of the Constitution as well, just in case one of the inmates wants that.

“Let’s say a man wants a copy of the Constitution,” Bush could tell them. “Well, he gets it.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.